


Choice & Primal Impulse

by Sanguineheroine



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Bath Houses, M/M, Slash, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanguineheroine/pseuds/Sanguineheroine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s called a <i>Yantra</i>,” he says softly, “it is a way to connect my spiritual experience to my physical body.”  He shifts slightly and it is there again in Holmes’s sight, magnificently hypnotic.  Before Holmes can consider it, his long fingers are tracing the concentric patterns inside the design, drawn eventually to a central point rendered in the perfect ruby hue of flowing blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice & Primal Impulse

**I**

The first time he sees it is in the bath house.

Watson removes his clothing with a self-consciousness that one would not expect from either a soldier or a boarding-school alumnus but when he slips the overlarge linen shirt from his shoulders Holmes sees the splintered scar that spreads over his scapula and understands immediately that the shame is new.

Holmes is so absorbed by the roaming red seams of the scar that he almost misses it. _It_ being an ornate, perfectly round mandala stamped on the pale smooth skin of Watson’s upper arm. The design is rendered in rich shades of red and gold, neatly symmetrical and so large that it reaches from just above Watson’s elbow nearly to his shoulder, and wraps almost completely around his solid bicep.

Watson’s shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly under Holmes’s scrutiny, and he finishes undressing hurriedly, throwing his clothes carelessly to the attendant and rushing from the room.

Holmes finds him alone on a stone bench near a brazier, his uninjured arm turned out and the other tucked carefully into the crease where the bench fits into the wall. When Holmes approaches, Watson opens his eyes with a resigned sigh.

“It’s called a _Yantra_ ,” he says softly, “it is a way to connect my spiritual experience to my physical body.” He shifts slightly and it is there again in Holmes’s sight, magnificently hypnotic. Before Holmes can consider it, his long fingers are tracing the concentric patterns inside the design, drawn eventually to a central point rendered in the perfect ruby hue of flowing blood.

After they are scrubbed clean and towelled dry, Holmes watches Watson’s skin disappear under layers of linen and wool with a kind of ache that he only later recognises as regret.

 

**II**

Holmes is flat on his back on the slick cobbles; head clouded and aching. There is a hot pain in his side and when Watson presses wet, shaking hands to his waistcoat he knows that the bullet did not, after all, miss its target. Watson grabs Holmes’s hands and forces them against the sodden wool, with a terse instruction to _press down, and for the love of God don’t let go_. He doesn't let go.

Watson sits back on his heels, stripping off his evening jacket and rolling up his sleeves. The golden edge of his tattoo glows in the light from the street-lamp and when the suture needle bites into his flesh a moment later, he follows the curving lines of the design in his memory to keep from screaming.

When the Morphine finally pulls him down into sleep, Holmes dreams of shining lotus blossoms and the careful touch of calloused fingers.

 

**III**

The music is still singing in Holmes’s veins when they arrive at the flat and he hums as he pours the brandy. Watson, flushed and smiling, shakes water from the curling ends of his hair and unbuttons his coat.

“ _No need for a cab, Watson_ ,” he quotes laughingly, “ _nice night for a stroll, dear boy_. A fine night indeed for a stroll, Holmes, if one happens to be a duck.” He drapes both coat and waistcoat over the armchair nearest the fire and inspects his shirt sleeves. “I say, old man, I am soaked clear to the skin,” he exclaims, pulling at his cufflinks.

Holmes takes a long swallow of his brandy and watches from the corner of his eye as Watson loosens his suspenders. The painful shyness of their early acquaintance evaporated long ago and the Doctor is comfortably loose limbed when he stretches out on the settee in only his trousers. The dark edges of the blossom move with each subtle flex of his muscles and Holmes finds it difficult to look away.

“Holmes,” Watson calls, “if you aren't planning to drink both of those, would you mind terribly bringing one over here?”

Holmes crosses the room in three long strides and deposits the glasses onto the side table but when Watson reaches to take one, Holmes puts a hand on his wrist.

“I had something rather different in mind,” he answers to Watson’s puzzled expression, “If you have no objection?”

Watson’s bemused smile slips into a sinful twist of lips and his eyes are wide and black when he moves in to meet Holmes’s kiss.

Afterwards they lie together on the bearskin and Holmes traces the curves and angles of the tattoo obsessively while Watson tells him about the tiny sunburnt Englishman in an Indian town who offered to protect Watson’s outer cosmic selves in exchange for his monthly tea ration.

“I didn't put much stock in it at the time, I must admit,” he murmurs, tangling his fingers in Holmes’s hair, “but I survived when none of my men did, and, after all, _there are more things in Heaven and Earth_ -”

He breaks off with a groan when Holmes replaces his fingertips with his tongue. “That is the most singular sensation,” he whispers when he can breathe again, “I have never felt anything quite like it.”

Later again, when Holmes is rising and falling over him in the blue pre-dawn light, Watson discovers that the experience is not precisely singular; Holmes dips his head low but instead of the expected gentle scrape of a tongue there comes the sharp sting of teeth against the centre of the intricate pattern and if he has neither mind nor breath to recant his earlier assertion, Holmes does not seem to mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _**Accelerate Me**_ by **Def FX**


End file.
